NCR Today

"The body of God is the entire universe; it is all matter in its myriad fantastic, ancient and modern forms, from quarks to galaxies. More specifically, the body of God needing our attention is planet Earth, a tiny piece of divine embodiment that is our home and garden. In order to care for this garden, we need to know about it; in order to help all creatures who constitute this body flourish, we need to understand how we humans fit into this body.

All understandings of creation and providence rest on assumptions about what the world is like and where humans belong in it... In our evolutionary, ecological view of reality, everthing is interrelated and interdependent. As we have seen, "ecological unity" is both radically individualistic and radically relational. In an organism or body, the whole flourishes only when all of the different parts function well; in fact, the whole is nothing but each and every individual part doing its particular thing successfully. Nothing is more unified than a well-functioning body, but at the same time, nothing relies more on complex, diverse individuality.

“Seek joy where joy may be found” is one of those rare aphorisms that seems to combine perfectly the human capacity to hope with an earthy sense of the practical. It occurred to me while reading Austen Ivereigh’s post about Cardinal Castrillon-Hoyos’ decision not to preside at a special Mass in the extraordinary form here in Washington this coming weekend.

Ivereigh thought the Paulus Institute, which is sponsoring the Mass, missed an opportunity to clearly say that the change was a result of the recently released information about the cardinal’s complicity in encouraging a French prelate not to report the crime of sex abuse to civil authorities. He thought this would show that the conservative liturgical movement is not mindlessly tied to the kind of clericalism that permitted the cover-up of clerical sex abuse for so many years. I agree.

"Dear Fathers and Brothers of the Society, today you look with special devotion at the Blessed Virgin Mary, remembering that on 22 April 1541, St Ignatius and his first companions made their solemn vows before the image of Mary in the Basilica of St Paul Outside-the-Walls."

--from an address delivered by Pope Benedict XVI to the Fathers and Brothers of the Society of Jesus on April 22, 2006, following a Mass celebrated in St. Peter's Basilica by Cardinal Angelo Sodano.

The following is the text of a press release issued by the Paulus Institute April 21st:

In consultation with His Eminence, Dario Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos, The Paulus Institute has agreed to seek another celebrant for the Pontifical Solemn High Mass taking place on April 24th. This action will help maintain the solemnity, reverence and beauty of the Mass.

The Paulus Institute was formed for the propagation of sacred liturgy. The Traditional Latin Mass planned for April 24th honoring Pope Benedict on his five-year inauguration anniversary is a liturgical event much bigger than the individual celebrant. Cardinal Castrillon was approached to celebrate the Mass early in what has been a three-year effort because of his special experience in celebrating this form of Mass and his efforts under Pope John-Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI in encouraging the traditional form of the Mass, full liturgy and sacraments.

The following is taken from a Jan. 24, 2010 press release by the Paulus Institute in Washington DC, which is sponsoring the Mass, commenmorating the fifth anniversary of the pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI.

The mass is to be celebrated by the Vatican’s Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos, who reportedly has stepped aside following reports he wrote a letter in 2001 praising a French bishop for refusing to hand over to the police a priest who had raped children. Organizers are now reportedly searching for a replacement prelate, one immersed adequately in the Latin language and ceremony.

The mass, set for Saturday, has been marketed as "the First Traditional Mass at the National Shrine’s High Altar in 45 Years." It is to be "commemorated in the Great Upper Church of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington DC, by a Pontifical Solemn High Mass in the 'Extraordinary form'—commonly known as the 'Traditional Latin Mass' or 'Tridentine Mass'— celebrated by the Vatican prelate Dar'o Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos of Colombia."

The main celebrant of a pontifical solemn high Mass slated for Saturday at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception has agreed to step aside from celebrating the mass following the objections of a growing chorus of sex abuse survivors and others, according to a report by UPI.com.

Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos was named in French press reports last week for praising French Bishop Pierre Pican of Bayeux-Lisieux in a 2001 letter for refusing to denounce one of his priests, Fr. Rene Bissey, who went on to be sentenced to 18 years in jail for raping a boy and abusing 10 other young men.

Writer Joe Eaton wrote a good essay over at the The Center for Public Integrity Web site yesterday explaining that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the bishops and staff, lobbied Congress on the health care reform bill, but will not disclose the actual amount of money it spent on its losing effort.

So much for the vaulted themes of transparency and accountability by bishops and their conference staff.

How refreshing and inspiring it is to continually hear about the great work that our Catholic sisters are doing around the world. As I noted in a blog here the other day, Nick Kristof writing in The New York Times weighed in with a column about these great women. Even with all the institutional woes of our church, the real work goes on, and all you have to do is go to the poorest areas of developing countries and you’ll see that a substantial amount of that work is by nuns.

Author and occasional NCR contributor Paul Wilkes last year wrote about his experiences, highlighting some of the selfless work of the Salesian Sisters of Don Bosco of the Bangalore Province, after a trip he took there. (First piece; second piece).

Today’s Washington Post offered yet another dimension of the sex abuse scandal. It seems that Cardinal Dar'o Castrillón Hoyos of Colombia, who once praised a French bishop for not telling police about a priest who had sexually assaulted children, is scheduled to celebrate a Pontifical Latin Mass at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington April 24. That Mass is sponsored by the Paulus Institute, an organization that promotes the traditional Latin Mass.

Here is the Post story in a nutshell:

“Castrillón, the former head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Clergy, made headlines last week when a 2001 letter he wrote to French Bishop Pierre Pican surfaced in the French press. In it, he praised Pican for not reporting the pedophile priest to police, despite being mandated to do so under French law.